black-ish Recap: Dre Introduces Junior to the Barbershop Culture

By Mike Krolak | Nov 19th, 2015

Welcome to this week's black-ishrecap for Season 2, Episode 8 “Chop Shop” (air date: November 18, 2015). Bow is getting the family ready for the annual holiday photo, so Dre takes Junior and Jackto the barbershop.

Dre is shocked when Junior shuns the family barber, T, for a new guy named Smoke -- but Dre ends up getting himself a pretty bad haircut from T. The incident leaves Dre distracted at work. Dre and his assistant Curtis take the opportunity to explain the relationship between a man and his barber to their coworkers, and Dre resolves to stick with T:

Meanwhile, Ruby takes over planning for the annual Johnson family photo after Bow was getting too stressed out about it, and Ruby's theme for the pic is "elegance." The way she plans on expressing that elegance is with a family photo with themed to the TV show Empire. And Bow doesn't play a very big part in it:

Dre goes back to the barbershop on T's day off, hoping that Smoke can help fix his busted 'do. Meanwhile, Junior is starting to get comfortable in the barbershop culture. Smoke refuses to fix Dre's hair, citing loyalty, and then T comes in and offers to fix it for Dre -- but not before everyone in the shop makes fun of Dre for a bit:

Dre gets a haircut at home in time for the photo, but he soon realizes that the culture of the barbershop is a big part of what made the way he is today, and he's grateful for that. He's happy that Junior is forming his own relationships in that world, and that's good enough for Dre -- even if his busted 'do isn't.